The advent of next generation sequencing (NGS), and the reduction in cost of DNA sequencing, make possible large-scale human genome sequencing for research in medical genetics and population genetics. NGS sequencers used for analyzing genome sequences can produce several billions of very short fragment sequences (referred to as “reads”). The genome sequence of an individual is obtained through resequencing (including indexing, mapping and alignment), and by determining the locations of the generated reads in a whole genome sequence.
Early systems for genome sequencing mainly focused on the accuracy of the sequencing. However, as the use of NGS has become more widespread, the cost of generating each read has significantly dropped, whereas the amount of generated data useful for the sequence analysis has increased. Therefore, there is a need for sequencing technology that can quickly and accurately process high-capacity reads.